How to solve a whistling sound when wearing over the ear headphones with my miniRTE hearing aids

Headphones are not the healthiest things for your ears, and you already have significant hearing loss. It might be a good idea to try to work out an acceptable substitute.

I can tell you one thing for sure. You do not want my hearing, which was primarily caused by noise.

We are now talking about different things.

1. Hearing aid streaming audio is not better than dedicated headphones. Full stop.

2. Headphones can certainly be bad for your hearing, just like listening to your streaming hearing aids at full blast can be bad.

3. Headphones are not inherently are bad for your hearing. It’s the volume level at which you listen to the audio that is damaging.

I appreciate you looking out for my hearing but this is a tangent from what this thread is about

@bobbydigital16 said:

Hearing aid streaming audio is not better than dedicated headphones. Full stop.

Unquestionably true!
I tried every trick in the book to get streaming audio to reproduce a modicum of bass, to no avail.
I would go on my walks, and just the ambient noise, and traffic was overwhelming, even with the mics muted.
My solution was to get a pair of Etymotic ER3SE IEMs!
With the Dual flange eartips, I get max isolation (have to watch for traffic), and full, detailed frequency response.
At home, at my computer, my Sennheiser HD6XX are the answer.

Back to your original issue, I’m curious about a few things:
Does the whistling only occur with ANC enabled?
Does it occur if you use theSony, or Bose passively, ie: wired?
Do you still have your Airpods, and do they whistle?

Just thinking, maybe it’s not the Mores.

@flashb1024 said:

Does the whistling only occur with ANC enabled?
Does it occur if you use theSony, or Bose passively, ie: wired?
Do you still have your Airpods, and do they whistle?

The AirPods Max never whistled.

Both the Sony XM5 and Bose QC45 do. They don’t whistle if I’m not playing anything. Having ANC on or off doesn’t matter. Itll whistle if I’m playing music but not all the time. It’s like certain notes or frequencies cause it, which is why it makes sense to me now to be feedback related.

Why the AirPods Max never whistled is a mystery to me. Perhaps the open spaces within the ear cups were different causing different acoustics?

@bobbydigital16 said:

Headphones are not inherently are bad for your hearing. It’s the volume level at which you listen to the audio that is damaging.

The AirPods Max also give you an idea of the dB you are getting in your ears. I am not sure that those numbers in my iPhone are accurate though. Regardless, I set music to play at 65 dB tops.

@e1405

Can’t seem to access my music level as wearing Phonaks today and not my Oticons.

Despite having worse hearing loss than you, my phone tells me I never go above 52 dB when listening to music.

@Zebras said:

Can’t seem to access my music level as wearing Phonaks today and not my Oticons.

If am not mistaken, that sound level indication works only with BT headphones.

@Hooby said:

Just in case it helps - when wearing over the ear headphones my audiologist recommended unhooking the Aid from behind the ear and let it dangle in front of your ear and then put on the headphones. Clearly this gives even more space, so the microphones are even less likely to feedback and whistle. this certainly works for me.

Great point here. I do something similar when I use headphones on my OPN 1s. I don’t leave it dangle in front of my ear, but I tuck it inside of my ear well. This in effect “centers” my HA shell more in the middle position w.r.t. the headphones.

Unlike the More and Real which comes with Tcoil by default, my OPN 1s actually don’t have a dedicated Tcoil inside of it. However, it still does have a smaller induction coil used for NFMI (Near Field Magnetic Induction) communication between the 2 HAs. So Oticon takes advantage of that and offers a Tcoil-like mode called the AutoPhone Program. Once I enable this, if it detects a magnetic field nearby, it’ll switch the OPN to this AutoPhone mode and reads the induction from the headphones’ magnetic field just like how the Tcoil would do it. I’ve been able to listen to headphones via this induction option very well, without worrying about feedback. Putting the HA shells inside my ear wells positions them more in the center so that they can get the best induction reception from the headphones’ speakers.

@bobbydigital16 said:

It’s like certain notes or frequencies cause it, which is why it makes sense to me now to be feedback related.

Is it a sustained whistle, or a fluttering warble like TTTF (Talking Through The Fan) effect?
I know, I’ve been bugging the S**T out of you, but I love this topic, because I’ve had that very problem, but even without headphones.
As others agree, it does seem to be feedback, but are the earcups that much smaller on the newer cans?
Oh well, hope you get it sorted soon.

@flashb1024 said:

Is it a sustained whistle, or a fluttering warble like TTTF (Talking Through The Fan) effect?

It’s not a sustained whistle, it’s periodic that seems to correspond to something in the music as it’s playing. I don’t know what you mean by TTTF

@flashb1024 said:

but are the earcups that much smaller on the newer cans?

The Sony’s for sure are smaller than the AirPods Max. I’m not sure about the QC45. My guess is yes.

" 1. Hearing aid streaming audio is not better than dedicated headphones. Full stop." I do agree to a degree but not as much as past times. My original Oticons were dismal for music streaming but my 3 yr old Phonak Marvels I chose basically for their music reproduction.

Having said that I choose to still want & love my Sony MX headphones due to repro but also Noise cancelling !!! Streaming to open dome HA can’t compete in the right scenarios to listening to music with active noise cancelling.

This thread has been an eye opener as the Oticons were fine under the Sony’s but the Phonaks are hopeless for feedback under them. I will have to try out the Telecoil idea.

Finally - I am thinking of trying out “hearing loss” compatible or featured headphones if my Sony’s ever cark it. Such as (Aussie here): https://shop.valuehearing.com.au/products/audera-headphone6
It really wouldn’t bother me to take the HAs off if a set of headphones can compensate my loss “properly”. BUT it took me a lot of research & sampling to decide on the Sony’s so the headphones would have to be good in their own right to suck me in.

@someozi said:

I am thinking of trying out “hearing loss” compatible or featured headphones if my Sony’s ever cark it.

Cashed up? There’s Focal Relaunches Bathys Wireless ANC Headphones with Mimi Sound Personalization | audioXpress4.

@someozi said:

It really wouldn’t bother me to take the HAs off if a set of headphones can compensate my loss “properly”. BUT it took me a lot of research & sampling to decide on the Sony’s so the headphones would have to be good in their own right to suck me in.

The Airpods Max compensate for hearing loss. The problem is, as you pointed out, that they do not do it “properly”. Most times, I wear mine on top of my hearing aids for a better listening experience.

Ouch! & I haven’t had a close look at the Audeara specs or the Bathy you ref’d (assuming full specs are available) but like most Eq apps & other adjustable device junk around - they are not going to do much good if they are basically gimmicks aimed at “taste” or “preference” (not truly designed or catering to hearing impaired) that boost 15dB max & you have 30/40/55+ loss even in average core music range.

Off track but have to laugh at phone hearing impaired accessibility these days - subtitles (full-stop) - there you go! Wow why thank you so much… PCs/Laptops/Tablets & all ear buds & headphones no doubt largely all the same, they have to all be capable; just software isn’t provided for it.